Comments made by Mark_E_Smith

I disagree with the professor. It isn't that the stimulus isn't large enough, it is that those who could use it to create jobs prefer not to. A stimulus that went directly to small business start-ups would be the only way to create jobs, but it wouldn't work unless welfare and tax breaks are also removed from multinational corporations that cause massive unemployment and small business closures through their policies of outsourcing and globalization.

I also disagree that Congress is sluggish and the process is slow. Fiscal regulations and oversight, and social programs like Medicare and Social Security were the result of reforms after the Great Depression and they are all being deregulated, unfunded or attacked. Reforms to a basically corrupt system will never bring about anything more than temporary progress.

I agree with Daniel Beeman on the logistics. A protest that will inevitably come under violent attack by the oligarchy should be in a place that, if not defensible, at least has secure escape routes.

I also agree with jahmonkey that many of the existing groups are worthless because they tried to work within the system and became corrupted by it, instead of trying to change the system to something less corrupt.

As for SoCalKD, the protest planning group meets every day, and the occupation will be ongoing, so Shabbos observance should not be a deterrant. No compromise is necessary to participate the rest of the week.

Occupy San Diego is supporting Occupy Wall Street, as are many other cities, and the agenda of Occupy Wall Street is very reminiscent of the complaints listed by the founders of this country in the Declaration of Independence. Although there may be a minor concession or two, accompanied by increasingly violent crackdowns as was the case in Egypt, tyrants do not grant petitions from their subjects. The corporate-owned bureaucracy we call a government does not allow public opinion to influence policy decisions and answers only to big corporate donors.

The turning point will come once it is obvious that our government exists to prevent us from having a voice, not to represent us. Although we have great income inequalities here than existed in either Egypt or Tunisia, there are still people living one paycheck or illness away from disaster, who look to the system to save them. Only when social consciousness rises to the point where most recognize that it is the system that is oppressing them, will there be real hope for change.